Happiness for Enneagram Type 8 

This dude's vibe is hypnotic.

I'm an 8 and it is simply crazy how literally everything you say applies to me. I think we eights want to appear big and important because that's where we feel in control and "safe". I am terrified of giving others control over me because I am not sure others will take appropriately care of my needs. I think the main issue with an 8 is that their trust into other people was broken at an early stage and this can't be recovered. That's why financial and professional independence is so important to me. I want to rely on myself and just on myself. If I feel that I rely on someone or need someone else to accomplish something I get nervous and ANGRY. Discovering the eneagram really made a difference to me because it's like looking into a brutally honest mirror. I think the key to release the anger and to regain a certain trust in others is to understand the moments in which the anger first has been created and to feel love and understanding for oneself and everyone involved.

I'm an 8w9 (and an INTJ), but why does everyone think we're terrible people? I was abused as a child so I stood up to be strong and protect people. I've always wanted to help people be stronger and stand up for people. I've never wanted to hurt someone (except for in bouts of extreme anger, but it always passes). I was never a bully; I stood up to bullies. I always thought I had a big heart for people. I'm not a terrible person, but whenever I watch these videos about 8s they say we're terrible and cruel and sadistic. Do you think that stereotype comes from other types not understanding what we're thinking/feeling?

I am an 8 and am totally happy that I have a deeper understanding of me. It has given me a new perspective so I can go deeper in my spiritual practice and deeper into all of life as a truth seeker, protector and above all fabulous 8. Thank you

Joshua, you are a real jewel. I am a type 2 who discovered the Enneagram a few months ago when I was having friendship difficulties with a type 8, who had been a complete mystery to me and was causing me a lot of emotional pain. Through learning about type 8, was able to heal our relationship, and he has totally vivified my life. I watched your video about type 2 and type 8 - absolutely wonderful. You have a beautiful sweetness about you and are very enlightening. You recognize the types' shortcoming and gifts, and explain it in a way that the viewer doesn't take offense about what they need to work on, can be joyful about the beautiful aspects of their type, and you inspire us to reach for our higher levels. Thank you. You are a gift and I'm so glad I found your Enneagram type videos.

Hi Joshua I am an 8 with a 7wing, (social instinctual type), and you basically described the different aspects of me (positive & negative) almost perfectly. Understanding the Enneagram personality types has changed my life. I am actually a licensed psychotherapist and have all my clients take the test before or during the first session, because I think it is pretty accurate, gives me a sense of how I can help them in a way that they would feel safe, and can trust me in order for there to be growth). Being an 8 I can be confrontational and intimidating (although I really don't know why I am only 5'2 and am just really passionate about certain things). I have learned to tone down my intensity with certain people, and still maintain integrity and directness. It is important to discover how we really are and try to be the healthy version of ourselves, rather than trying to be someone else. I think a lot of the unhappiness that people experience is from not knowing self, and therefore not accepting self. I used to try to get people to understand me, or at least see I am not a threat, but am actually coming from love, but my aggressiveness showed otherwise, and I would push people away (still do unfortunately). Most psychotherapists are Type 2's (the helpers), and I wondered why I wasn't as nurturing as the other therapists yet have been very successful in helping my clients. I am moving towards a 2, as I have become more compassionate but am literally allergic to people being dependent on me. Compassion is the key for eights.. Anyways thank you for your videos, you are very good at what you do, and I will share your videos with others.

Whoa thanks Joshua French! As an 8, this was like a journey through my own mind. Great stuff :)

Type 8 descriptions always highlight the 'sweet, scared, hurting little child' inside the type and focus on the fierce dictator that manifests... This is too stereotypical... The type 8 exists to deal with all the things the rest of humanity is to scared of. Were it not for type 8's, the rest of humanity would have been consumed by the jungle a long time ago. Everybody has a scared child inside of them - 8's just have legitimate reasons to be scared and extreme depths of courage, energy, optimism and self belief against all the odds. Being that guy gets tiring and we aint got time for little people who do not understand the scarier sides of our existence and are ever preoccupied by their fleeting circumstances and impulses, usually based on social anxieties. Sadly not much room for us in modern western societies... but the girls are so damn fine here.

Proud ENFJ-Ni 8w7 here. I definitely attribute a lot of it to having complex PTSD due to decades of emotional abuse. This is spot on. The core essence of my personality combination is that I am not afraid to stand up for injustice. I will fearlessly voice myself to protect others.

Yeah sounds pretty negative this portrait. I don't think 8 get nasty for the sake of being nasty. I think it's only fight even nasty fights for tha sake of what's fair :( not for themselves must mostly for protection and a lot for protecting other with a lot of self sacrifice. As in : it needs to be done, noone is taking the risk to do it, then I will just because I can.

This video was so helpful! Thank you for the hard work and love you put in to your work! ♥️

I'm a creative 8 (w7) and I absolutely RELISH taking risks. I know I can be seen as confrontational/intimidating but I am so eager to get to the REALITY of things I just get bold and jump right in. In contrast, I also adore breaking open and exploring my vulnerability which I think comes from the fact that so many of us are so passionate but we need to trust the person before us is not out to control/harm us, but is confident and open which are characteristics I find irresistible :)

I've really enjoyed listening to your talks on all the types. You can be really funny and i find myself laughing a lot. I am a sx 8 with a strong 9w. I don't relate much anymore to the lower type of 8 except when i was a lot younger but i was never the playground bully. My parents had very strong boundaries and didn't take a lot of nonsense and i feel as a woman that i was nurtured into a 2-ness, initially forced, because i wasn't necessarily integrating to 2, being average. Stopping, coming to stillness, needing solitude, doing regular meditation, following people like Eckhart Tolle and getting in touch with really deep grief are all helping me grow. I do know what you mean when you talk about a different kind of power. By the way, Richard Rohr, one enneagram expert (a healthy 1) says 8's often get a bad deal because we can look angry and express anger but what it really is, is passion. 8's are full of passion (for justice, fairness) but this can be expressed in an anger-like fashion.

Omg my son and I had a huge fight a few months ago because I yelled out the car window, for the second time, of a car he was driving. I was so insulted that he would try to control me like that because it seemed like a natural thing in to shout at the guy on the motorcycle who's disturbing the peace that he was disturbing the peace because it was loud AF. So I laughed when you said that, and I definitely feel like an 8 and recognize it. This is a wonderful video, thanks.

This video made me smile towards the end. Thanks.

Thanks so much for this video! I'm an 8 and what you've said is so correct. My favorite part - Power NOT Force. Wow I will keep this in mind. Although I'm very consciously aware of our interconnectivity, the practice of reminding myself that everything is exactly as it should be - right now - is always incredibly helpful when I feel that stress to ACT and REMEDY the situation. I also want to point out that 8s just have a lot of energy/power rolling around inside naturally and we seem to instinctively know it can be used for either significant positive or negative shifts. I'm pretty sure someone like Hitler was an 8...but then again so was Martin Luther King Jr. It's up to us to choose wisely. ;)

This is awesome! Keeps a lot in perspective for the so-called pushy of us 8s

I enjoy your vdeos so much. 😊.

Meditation is crucial for 8s, yes? Yes... "Power, not force."

As an 8 I wouldn't consider heading into danger just to show I'm not afraid - would never go into a cave in that way. I'm overly cautious and alert to bodily danger. I'm assuming that's where the tri-type comes in. Can relate to most everything else though.

I'll recommend these videos to others, definitely. Thank you.

Your descriptions are so very insightful.. and I like your hair a little longer like this:)

As a very strong 8 (with 1 tendencies) and INFJ mix, this was unexpectedly helpful in understanding what I considered "dark" qualities of mine. Thank you for posting it!

I found this video very helpful and enjoyable, but one of the last things you mention is that 8's aren't likely to "be zooming up the levels of consciousness or spiritual health". That felt like a splash of cold water and I would have liked a little more explanation. What, more so than other healthy types, would hold a healthy 8 back from spiritual development?

some parts are counter phobic 6, 8s will not jump into danger if they can't handle it, cp 6s will

Once again your acting skills anstound me. That's the face. And what it feels and looks like. One of my sisters is one of these, and it was none too easy on me, the kindergarten she went to, our brother, and least of all our other sister, or her elementary school untill she was a lil bit more mature and reined in. So we kinda saw her go from imperious and to... well, now she's a mature sucessful well-adjusted young lady with many friends and and, ironically exceptional older sister to the youngest kid, she loves playing teacher and helping the little one with her schoolwork... But the early childhood developement was spot on, she was a very determined, imperious kid who wasn't shy to beat up her older siblings (our brother comanded some respect over her tho) or threated to rat us out to our parents, she wanted an explanation for everything and if she decided to dress completely in purple for the day, there was no talking her out of it XD And the go-getter rebellious attitude, too. "I'll tell mom to give you trouble~, I've been practicing my cutest looks right in front of the mirror", never afraid to use an ellbow, and there was that one time she straight-up decapitated my avorite Barbie because I wouldn't play with her. At this point it's all just funny stories we tell at family meetings. As you pointed out it served her well in school and she's very protective of her friends. I'm not sure if I ever noticed that "counterphobic" behaviour about her but I'll watch out for it. I do think she would do something like that tho, she's Isabel. She's loud, too. It's amazing how accurate this is. I do recall that as a young girl she struggled with that very issue of recognizing when force is not necessary like there would be a conflict and she would hit, or hit back when it wasn't productive because "Well I have to avenge myself!"/ she couldn't just take an insult or hit or even repproach lying down or recognize good oportunities to end fruitless arguments (That still happens to her sometimes but not often) but by now she's very much aquired that "natural" coolness and aura/presence. * proud big sis * But I'm also looking at this from a different perspective than just that because lately I've come to realize that there might be a little bit of 8 in me to somewhere, like, tritype wise, because while the "instinctual/gut" type is my least used it sure as hell isn't 9 or 1... at all, and, with this being my least used bit of the triad it's not a side of me that's well developed or that I was well in touch with, something that always seemed a bit alien and stormy to me I guess, as an INTP I sorta conflated this with this inferior-Fe related undeferientiated blunt childish anger (in my case that probably I have a rather shorter fuse than your average INTP (and/or core 5) mostly it's been a source of embarassment but it might not always have to be. Come to think of it I think it's flown into some of my finest creations in terms of fictional characters already), but actually I can have quite a hard, primal wrath sometimes, too, the nonchalant "It's not pretty but it's true" attitude with a self-preservation slant to it because, I'm not gonna extend my hand to someone who's gonna bite it. Maybe that's why I admired it in Isabel, maybe it's part of why we both have an affinity for cartoon villains and certain music., maybe it's time I started looking as that as a source of strenght too as long as I don't go overboard. You give me reason, I am perfectly capable of hating your guts and I guess going forward if nothing else keeps me? I think used to be way more direct and strong-willed as a kid sometimes in some ways bore lots of shit happened, I still am I guess, in a blunt way. Some of these... "early childhood memories" do kind of hit some button of kind of feeling wronged and scared/indignant and the strong feeling of "the other person must not win, I'm not scared of you" So, quite a bit of self-discovery here, even if it's not that big a part of me as for a core 8 person. Besides I guess I myself have also had a few moments where I could stand to shelf the pissed-off ness (as my wise little brother actually told me a long long time ago)

Very helpful, thank you very much!

I'm a 9w8 INTP female who's fallen pretty hard for one I think is an 8 ENTJ male. Not sure his wing yet. As an 8 he's fairly spiritually evolved; I'm frustratingly average. I trust you with direction & insight re: enneagram completely, as so far the videos I've seen resonate deeply with what I know of myself, others, & their types. Wish I knew a magic spell to charm this one. :-)

Thanks a million. I laughed and cried through this :)

compelling, inspiring... might be words you were looking for... such fun

Ich sehe mir gerne diese Enneagramm Videos von Joshua French an, hab jedoch festgestellt, dass ich mich durch die Darstellung jeweils eines Typs überall wiederfinde. In dem Buch "Wer du wirklich bist" von D. Rathmer sind Übersichten, wo ich auf einen Blick alle 9 Typen vergleichen kann. Das hat mir letzendlich den Durchbruch gebracht und Klarheit verschafft.

The thing is that's not how I handled things as a child. I think 8w9 is very very different from 8w7 and I think when people describe type 8 they attribute all the 8w7 qualities to all type 8's :/

Inspiring other people you are a 4 at it s best love too watch

the description of the young person eating an octopus sounds more like a counter phobic 6 than an 8s. 8s don't move counterphobicly toward things they are scared of, they are more numb about being fearful however, and do move forward without worrying about things other people worry about. Other things do fit.

gosh im not a bully at all wtf

Oh, dear. I DO like your video... But you give a lot of examples that, even though you claim this and that "could be a good thing" are quite horrible. Also, Trump and that other dude... I would NEVER shout out someone I don't know and I wouldn't use verbal attacks like you're describing (I would, though, in public situations if someone behaved badly and I would with my close ones... ). I would, however, make my point of view perfectly clear and then I would walk away, often never to come back. But thinking about it- maybe that's kind of like the same thing as you're describing just done in a more restrained way. Also, I have a tendency (I am trying to stop it, though!) to suppress my personality because I cannot scare people, intimidate them. I feel that even when I am positive and creative people get scared and uncomfortable. People basically are wimps, followers and eager to conform. Oh, dear- here I go, right? I think for a while I have been disintegrating towards a number 5. I am unhappy at work and the situation won't change since it's not a private business, but a communal school and it's got to do with budgets that come from higher up. Anyway, I am quitting and I am feeling isolated, angry, even scared. But I won't go back. There are aspects of feeling disempowered and I cannot live like that.

I find it helpful to look at the eneagram symbol; it show the direction of integration for each personality type as well as the direction of disintegration; if I remember well, eight's direction of integration is when they begin to behave more like a two personality type; service to others. So, perhaps, if they serve the people they seek to dominate, they might develop that much needed compassion. I'd like to guess that you're a nine but I could be off, am I?

as a type 7, I never accept type 8 to be close to me. Once I was done with the project, I left them because they never understand my individuality & always tend to be bossy and pushy around me so much! Also, I could see the cruelty in their eyes although they're respectful.

Maybe it’s my eight that had me eat a tarantula and go shark diving

I am a mix of 7 wing and 9 wing in diff ways I dont hold in anger I say it right away. I am definatly fight or flight type. At 30 I've developed into a well balanced woman but my younger years I was a bit of a wildcard in many ways. The introverted thinking as an INTP make others not understand why it is definatly INTP with stong 8 tendencies. This confuses many and I am fine with that.

Im an 8... SP and INTJ too

Thank you for the video. It is very insightful and practical. Please could you give me any suggestion how to help my wife who is a 6 to deal with our daughter who is 8. You could save us!

You are incredibly attractive and engaging.

like I gotta know when its worth it and when its not

yeah well you got that right sometimes i just wanna push my limits so hard it hurts me

Thanks a lot it was soooooo good for me!!!!! Kiss you direktly, brotherlike on your mouth! Thanks! Hartmuth from Germany

You are not a all objective but paint a very negative picture about this type because of your own personal feelings (fear). I don't think you're really doing a good job in this vid. Maybe you should work on building more confidence and more of a spine so that these people don't threaten you as much as they do..

you gotta show ne someone positive i thought of katherine pierce from tvd

I'm an ENFP 8 8w7 whats your view on that?

...apparently I need to relax. Hmph. Thanks. :)

you remind me a bit of michael fassbender

This young guy you talk about sound a bit cp6 maybe?

Hadji

no decent 8 would go into that cave

are you a 7?

I want to give you a passionate, friendly and loving kiss on the lips.

And I'm definitely a Sigma, not an Alpha. Ew.

I'm a 9w8 INTP female who's fallen pretty hard for one I think is an 8 ENTJ male. Not sure his wing yet. As an 8 he's fairly spiritually evolved; I'm frustratingly average. I trust you with direction & insight re: enneagram completely, as so far the videos I've seen resonate deeply with what I know of myself, others, & their types. Wish I knew a magic spell to charm this one. :-)